Crime and Prisons

February 2, 2001

https://www.smartertimes.com/319/crime-and-prisons

The New York Times just doesn't seem to be able to write about crime and prisons without slipping into its familiar fallacy. Today's front-page article about the prison population in New York reports, "Despite the sharp drop in violent crime in the state, there has been a 9 percent rise in the number of violent offenders in prison between 1994 and 2000."

The Times has been repeatedly challenged on this point, in the August 10, 2000, issue of Smartertimes.com, in the Summer 2000 issue of City Journal, in the scrapbook section of the Weekly Standard. As City Journal put it, "crime was falling in part because more people were serving more time." Yet the Times persists in asserting that a falling violent crime rate and an increase in the prison population are somehow contradictory trends that happen "despite" each other.

Now They Tell Us: A brief "Topics of the Times" editorial in today's New York Times describes Terry McAuliffe as "a walking symbol of the wretched excess of the Clinton years." Here's how the Times news department handled a news story on June 9, 2000, reporting that Mr. McAuliffe had been named chairman of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles: The article described him as "the Democratic Party's most prodigious fund-raiser." It included a quote from the convention's chief executive saying, "Terry's commitment to the Democratic Party is unprecedented. Time and again he has demonstrated his deep devotion to our party's goals and efforts." It included a quote from James Carville saying "His stock is trading at an all-time high. He brings some panache and a lot of enthusiasm to the convention." And it included a quote from Mr. McAuliffe saying, "I'm happy to be joining a terrific convention team. And I'm looking forward to working with them to make this the greatest convention in the history of American politics."

Funny how, back when the presidential campaign was still on and Al Gore had a shot at winning, the Times hadn't yet decided to share with its readers the notion that Mr. McAuliffe is "a walking symbol of the wretched excess of the Clinton years." Or even that his selection as convention chairman might have been greeted anywhere with anything other than acclaim.

Spelling Gadhafi: American newspapers have all sorts of different ways of spelling the name of the Libyan dictator. Once a newspaper chooses a preferred spelling, though, it usually attempts to stick with it. The New York Times fails at this in an article on the Pan Am 103 verdict that runs in the international section of today's paper. The article alternates between "Qadaffi" and "Qaddafi."

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